DETROIT -- Max Scherzer never threw more than 96 pitches in his first start of any of his previous six seasons in the major leagues. So when manager Brad Ausmus headed to the mound with two outs in the eighth inning -- and Scherzer sitting on 107 pitches -- most fans of the Detroit Tigers probably thought they knew what was coming.

They were wrong. After a lengthy conversation, Ausmus walked back to the dugout. Scherzer stayed in the game. He retired Alcides Escobar on a harmless fly ball to right field.

Scherzer had a reputation for being honest with former manager Jim Leyland. If he didn't have anything left in the tank, he said so. Ausmus said he had a similar discussion during lunch with Scherzer in the offseason after he was hired to replace Leyland.

Scherzer clearly takes pride in that fact.

"I'm honest with all my managers," Scherzer said. "It doesn't matter if it's him or
anybody. I'm honest with them and I tell them exactly how I feel. I'm
not a hero. I don't try to take the ball when I shouldn't. That's
something I've always done my entire career because it's better to be
smart than to be dumb. I'm going to tell them exactly how I feel and I
told him exactly how I felt today."

So what did he tell Ausmus when the first-year manager visited him on the mound?

"I was honest," Scherzer said. "I told him I was tired. I was tired. But when it got down to it, I looked at who was coming up, and I wanted to face Escobar. I wanted to be in that game and I wanted to get out of that inning. Fortunately, I was able to make the pitches to be able to do that and get us on to the ninth inning."

Ausmus didn't go into detail about the discussion. But he obviously liked what he heard.

"I asked him how he felt and reminded him that he was going to be honest
with me," Ausmus said. "He gave me a response that I liked, that he
wanted to stay in, and in a manner that he wanted to stay in. He really
made the decision for me."

The earliest Scherzer threw 110 or more pitches in a season prior to Wednesday took place in 2011, when he threw 113 on April 13 in his third start that year. He didn't throw 110 pitches or more in any of his first four starts in the 2012 or 2013 seasons.